Artist Living

When All Holds are Loosed, What Words Come Out?

Me Ra Koh

I woke up in the dark this morning. The house was quiet. I felt the water calling me–calling me to untwist, stretch and glide. I went in faith. The cold pool was almost baptismal in how it shocked me into waking. As I swam, the smallest and deepest of knots undid themselves. My mind started to wash clean, and I felt like I could breathe. It’s funny how I remembered how to breathe underwater this morning. Now it was time to write.

I wanted to share this piece below with you. I thought it might be fun. In the morning, I try to write 3 pages (some mornings I miss it, but the mornings I make it are ever worth it). I come to the paper and pen with a desire to clear my slate. I’m always amazed with how much is on my mind first thing in the morning. Did I realize I was going to bed with so many thoughts?

My morning pages often become exercises where I dump all the things that are weighing heavy on me–so I can get to the writing and creative work I love most. But this time, I decided to try something different. I decided to write whatever images came to mind, as fast as they came to mind, and see where the trail of my subconscious would lead. It was my own exercise in loosing the holds that tie me down. This is what came out. (little note: This was a free write–Writing as fast as I could without editing along the way–always a bit scary to share. ;))

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Write your love and voice and feel it come up through your throat, a throaty spew of words that come from a place below your bowels. Write like that and feel all this madness untangle and drift in front of you before heading down river. Write and watch the words explode like popcorn, fuller and livelier, consumable. Write and feel yourself wake up, that back room of your brain that the editor keeps padlocked.

The lock is undone, the back door is open. You are wondering how to get out, but your already out–running as fast as the starlings soar. Write and feel your pen run across the tops of your words–leaping, flying and then landing only for a fraction of a second to gain momentum to leap again. Write and feel your insides calm.

Feel your left brain start to fall asleep and your right brain flip the switch to the carnival lights. Go round the carousel as many times as you want, as many times as you can before you get sick. Jump. Leap. Free fall before you let the sickness catch you. Then run again through a long wherehouse of ribbons, ribbons of every color, rolled out, suspended, stretched, hanging like noodles over your head. Run through the colors and feel their textures, feel their vibrance, feel their movement, feel their darkness. Take a smudge of the dark and define the light’s shape to find a doorway from the wherehouse of ribbons to the jungles of Thailand.

Swing with the monkeys, call out before sunrise with the Gibbons. Call louder the 2nd and 3rd time, awakening the jungle inside you–your creative mind. Remember the padlock to the back door is gone, and your creative is already free.

Time to find her. Hide and seek never felt so necessary. Seeking her out in the night, surrounded by the tall evergreens, unable to hear her footsteps because the river’s song keeps washing the sound away. But keep looking. Look in the obscure places to find her in the obvious place–by the campfire, warming herself, dethawing, and hoping to spend the next few hours drawing horses with the stars shapes. Hoping to do it with you.

There she is by the fire. You sit for the first time, unable to catch a deep breath, but time is moving still and she takes your hand and asks you to stretch the imagination–stretch as far as you can–sweat begins to bead on your forehead. You are straining to stretch, the padlock is coming back. The more you strain, the louder the lock clangs against the cement floor.

Up she takes you. Up into the stars. Up where the sky is endless. The stars are moving, burning and inviting as you find yourself transfixed by their light. There are no limits that you can fathom or understand here. A big laugh starts to gurgle inside you and falls out of you, throwing you here and there like a balloon losing its air.

And you find yourself deflated on the cold concrete. Smaller in size than you ever knew. And just as you begin to fear the newfound truth, you here your creative giggle. She is here. Waving to you. Inviting you to run with her again. To fill yourself up again. To fall in love with the filling and emptying and soaring and deflating and filling all over again. Run. Catch her. This is the most alive you know how to be!

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Thanks for reading along–for being a safe community to share free writes with. Free writes are scary to share, if ever shared.

I hope you catch your creative self today, if only for minutes. And whether you feel full, empty, soaring or deflated–you would take comfort in the fact that you are alive in the process–the creative process.

xoxoxo,

Me Ra

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  1. Misty says:

    Beautiful! Thank you for sharing Me Ra! =)

  2. Dear MeRa,

    Thank you so so much for posting this this morning! I just discovered a year ago this month when we started our photography blog that I love writing. I want to learn it just as much as I want to learn photography. I want to grow in it and be more creative and free in it. Thank you so much again for sharing this. It was absolutely inspiring and gave me something tangible to try.

    Can’t wait to hang out next Month!

    ~Candace

    P.S. I can’t believe that was your free write! It was like a shorty story. Beautiful. I felt like I was in a fairytale movie. Totally creative, fun, make believe, and beautiful.

  3. Sarah says:

    wow. Just. wow.

    What an incredible, creative dance with words this is.
    Simply Stunning.

    You inspire me, even when I am terrified, paralyzed. 🙂
    Even when you are terrified.

    Have a beautiful day MeRa! Thank you so much for sharing!

  4. Beth says:

    Speachless. My heart is racing right now. I want to read it again, slower this time and take it all in. Breathtaking!

  5. lora says:

    Just beautiful Me Ra. Amazing that it just comes out of you so easily and quickly and sounds like that! 🙂 Thanks for sharing even if it was a little scary.

  6. Dana says:

    Stunning….

  7. Paris Parfait says:

    That’s a great example of freewriting – very lyrical and lovely. Thanks for being brave enough to share your emotional rollercoaster of freewriting here. Very inspiring.

  8. Sometimes, when I read your words, it’s hard to breathe. I feel it, or have felt so much of what you think…I miss writing. I miss my freedom. Thank you, once again, for giving me permission to find it again.

  9. Suzy says:

    I love what you said at the end about how being alive is to be a part of the creative process. There are times when I feel like all of the creativity has left me, but it really is comforting to think that even when I feel like that, just being can in and of itself be creative.

  10. tracie says:

    beautiful … thank you for feeling safe with us …

  11. Me Ra

    Thank you for feeling safe with us, you have inspired me to reach for my dreams.

  12. Melissa says:

    Beautiful.
    I could see and feel myself running through the warehouse of ribbons.
    Thank you for sharing.

  13. Amanda says:

    Breathtaking MeRa. You are blessed with so many gifts…thank you for sharing them with all of us…<3

  14. Stephanie Daniels says:

    Mera,
    My Life coach has had me writing Morning pages and I’m not consistent, but when I do, it definitely doesn’t sound like this!!! It’s neat to know that you do that too! How in the world do you flow like that? You’ve tapped into another level of creativity. That’s absolutely amazing. I feel like that sounds like a pursuit of wisdom/love/an inner depth…..that was really deep. Thank you sooo much for sharing that. You always encourage me. I love that Sarah said “even when I am terrified, paralyzed…..Even when you are terrified.” You are amazing. I hope that God would give you an greater platform as you have so much gifting and talent to share. Bless you for your openness!

  15. Kelli says:

    Love it! Love it! Just love it! Wonderful. We all need to “spew” in some form or another. You described “her” so perfectly and beautifully it’s as if I can see “her” in front of me. So healthy…

  16. Ahhhh, I can breathe again…..
    I’d love to read an entire book written in that “voice”.
    Bless you, Mera!!
    Thank you and bless you!

  17. Leanne says:

    I hope you NEVER become afraid of sharing! That is so inspirational! I want to run through the ribbons, too!!! No, I want to do it all and I had forgotten how releasing it is to write! I think it’s time for me to start again and to do it all!
    Thank you!